• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.153-160
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• 2018

Recent trends in high-power-density applications have highlighted the importance of designing power converters with high-frequency operation. However, conventional LLC resonant converters present limitations in terms of high-frequency driving due to switching losses during the turn-off period. Switching losses are caused by the overlap of the voltage and current during this period, and can be decreased by reducing the switch voltage. In turn, the switch voltage can be reduced through a series connection of four switches, and additional circuitry is essential for balancing the voltage of each switch. In this work, a three-level LLC resonant converter that can operate at high frequency is proposed by reducing switch losses and balancing the voltages of all switches with only one capacitor. The voltage-balancing principle of the proposed circuit can be extended to n-level converters, which further reduces the switch voltage stress. As a result, the proposed circuit is applicable to high-input applications. To confirm the validity of the proposed circuit, theoretical analysis and experimental verification results from a 350 W-rated prototype are presented.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.662-671
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• 2018

This paper presents a new structure for a step up dc-dc converter, which has several advantageous features. Firstly, the input dc source and the clamped capacitor are connected in series to transfer energy to the load through dual voltage multiplier cells. Therefore, the proposed converter can produce a very high voltage and a high conversion efficiency. Secondly, a double voltage clamped circuit is introduced to the primary side of the coupled inductor. The energy of the leakage inductance of the coupled inductor is recycled and the inrush current problem of the clamped circuits can be shared equally by two synchronous clamped capacitors. Therefore, the voltage spike of the switch tube is solved and the current stress of the diode is reduced. Thirdly, dual voltage multiplier cells can absorb the leakage inductance energy of the secondary side of the coupled inductor to obtain a higher efficiency. Fourthly, the active switch turns on at almost zero current and the reverse-recovery problem of the diodes is alleviated due to the leakage inductance, which further improves the conversion efficiency. The operating principles and a steady-state analysis of the continuous, discontinuous and boundary conduction modes are discussed in detail. Finally, the validity of this topology is confirmed by experimental results.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.617-625
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• 1998

A passive energy recovery snubber for high-power-factor boost rectifier, in which the main switch is implemented with a MOSFET, is described in terms of the equivalent circuits that are operational during turn-on and turn-off sequences. These equivalent circuits are analyzed so that the overshoot voltage across the main switch, the snubber current, and the turn-off transition time can be predicted analytically. From these results, the normalized overshoot voltage is reduced to 1 as $_W2T_on$ varies from zero to $\pi$/2, and then it is fIxed at 1 for $_W2T_on$> $\pi$/2. The peak snubber inductor current is directly proportional to the input current. The turn-offtransition time wltoffvaries from 0 to 2.57, depending on $_W2T_on$. The main switch combined with proposed snubber can be turned on with zero current and turned off at limited voltage stress. The high-power-factor boost rectifier with proposed snubber is implemented, and the experimental results are presented to confirm the validity of proposed snubber.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.520-522
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• 2008

A novel two-switch active clamp forward converter suitable for high input voltage applications is proposed. The main advantage of the proposed converter, compared to the conventional active forward converters, is that circuit complexity is reduced and the voltage stress of the main switches is effectively clamped to either the input voltage or the clamping capacitor voltage by two clamping diodes without limiting the maximum duty ratio. Also, the clamping circuit does not include additional active switches, so a low cost can be achieved without degrading the efficiency. Therefore, the proposed converter can feature high efficiency and low cost for high input voltage applications. The operational principles, features, and design considerations of the proposed converter are presented in this paper. The validity of this study is confirmed by the experimental results from a prototype with 200W, 375V input, and 12V output.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.823-834
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• 2009

This paper proposes a high-efficiency single-stage ac/dc converter. The proposed converter features low voltage stresses and reduced switching losses. It operates at the boundary of discontinuous- and continuous-conduction modes by employing variable switching frequency control. The turn-on switching loss of the switch can be reduced by turning it on when the voltage across it is at a minimum. The voltage across the bulk capacitor is independent of the output loads and maintained within the practical range for the universal line input, so the problem of high voltage stress across the bulk capacitor is alleviated. Moreover, the voltage stress of the output diodes is clamped to the output voltage, and the output diodes are turned off at zero-current. Thus, the reverse-recovery related losses of the output diodes are eliminated. The operational principles and circuit analysis are presented. A prototype circuit was built and tested for a 150 W (50V/3A) output power. The experimental results verify the performance of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.846-857
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• 2019

Voltage step-down converters are very popular in distributed power systems, voltage regular modules, electric vehicles, etc. However, a high step-down voltage ratio is required in many applications to prevent the traditional buck converter from operating at extreme duty cycles. In this paper, a series capacitor interleaved buck converter with a soft switching technique is proposed. The DC voltage ratio of the proposed converter is half that of the traditional buck converter and the voltage stress across the one main switch and the diodes is reduced. Moreover, by paralleling the series connected auxiliary switch and the auxiliary inductor with the main inductor, zero voltage transition (ZVT) of the main switches can be obtained without increasing the voltage or current stress of the main power switches. In addition, zero current turned-on and zero current switching (ZCS) of the auxiliary switches can be achieved. Furthermore, owing to the presence of the auxiliary inductor, the turned-off rate of the output diodes can be limited and the reverse-recovery switching losses of the diodes can be reduced. Thus, the efficiency of the proposed converter can be improved. The DC voltage gain ratio, soft switching conditions and a design guideline for the critical parameters are given in this paper. A loss analysis of the proposed converter is shown to demonstrate its advantages over traditional converter topologies. Finally, experimental results obtained from a 100V/10V prototype are presented to verify the analysis of the proposed converter.

• Proceedings of the KIPE Conference
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• 1997.07a
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• pp.124-130
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• 1997

The main switch of high-frequency boost converter may be failed because the high switching current or voltage can damage this switch. The high switching stress can be reduced by snubber circuit. In this paper, a new passive snubber circuit which can recover trapped snubber energy without added control is proposed for boost converter. The control of boost converter with proposed snubber is the same as the conventional one. In addition, the energy recovery circuit can be implemented with a few passive components. The analysis for proposed circuit is presented, and the validity of the circuit is verified through simulation and experiment.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of IIIuminating and Electrical Installation Engineers Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.287-291
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• 2002

This paper presents active-clamp class-E high frequency resonant inverter with single-stage. The proposed circuit is integrated active-clamp class-E circuit to boost converter with the function of power factor correction. Boost converter is operated in positive and negative half cycle respectively at line frequency(60Hz), Such a operating in discontinuous conduction mode(DCM) of boost converter performs high power factor. By adding active-clamp circuit in class-E inverter, main switch of inverter part is operated not only ZVS(Zero Voltage Switch) but also reduced the switching voltage stress of main switch. This paper shows that simulation result using Psim 4.1 prove the validity of theoretical analysis. This proposed inverter will be able to be practically used as a power supply in various fields as induction heating applications, DC-DC converter etc.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.07b
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• pp.1380-1382
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• 2005

The multi-resonant converter minimizes a parasitic oscillation by using the resonant tank circuit absorbed parasitic reactance existing in a converter circuit. So it is possible that the converter operated at a high frequency has a high efficiency because the losses are reduced. However, the resonant voltage stress across a switch is four or five times a input voltage. This high voltage stress increases the conduction loss. In this paper, we proposed the AT flyback multi-resonant converter. The proposed converter can reduce the voltage stress to two or three times by using two series input capacitors. The operational principle of the proposed converter was verified through the experimental converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.20-30
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• 2013

This paper presents a soft switching DC/DC converter for high voltage application. The interleaved pulse-width modulation (PWM) scheme is used to reduce the ripple current at the output capacitor and the size of output inductors. Two converter cells are connected in series at the high voltage side to reduce the voltage stresses of the active switches. Thus, the voltage stress of each switch is clamped at one half of the input voltage. On the other hand, the output sides of two converter cells are connected in parallel to achieve the load current sharing and reduce the current stress of output inductors. In each converter cell, a half-bridge converter with the asymmetrical PWM scheme is adopted to control power switches and to regulate the output voltage at a desired voltage level. Based on the resonant behavior by the output capacitance of power switches and the transformer leakage inductance, active switches can be turned on at zero voltage switching (ZVS) during the transition interval. Thus, the switching losses of power MOSFETs are reduced. The current doubler rectifier is used at the secondary side to partially cancel ripple current. Therefore, the root-mean-square (rms) current at output capacitor is reduced. The proposed converter can be applied for high input voltage applications such as a three-phase 380V utility system. Finally, experiments based on a laboratory prototype with 960W (24V/40A) rated power are provided to demonstrate the performance of proposed converter.